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Wednesday, 3 February 2016

New Release: Worst Laid Plans

Introducing the first book in my Maddox Storm Mystery series. Murder, mayhem and romance with a dash of snarkiness and loads of laughs.
Now available on Amazon

All Maddox Storm wanted was to come home and hide from the world in peaceful solitude for a few short weeks. Oh, and give her soon-to-be ex cheating scumbag husband a fat headache while she’s at it. He hates all small towns, and Silver Firs in particular, with the kind of passion most men reserve for the bedroom. So call it revenge, or call it poetic justice, but investing his savings in the town’s founding inn seemed like the perfect plan for all her needs. But everything goes out the window when Maddox finds her arch-nemesis dead as a doormat in the kitchen downstairs. Before she knows it, she’s embroiled in a murder investigation and tangling with the smoky-eyed detective on the case. Not that she doesn’t trust him to do his job, but he may not be quite as motivated as she is to bring the guilty party to justice. After all, she’s the one who unwittingly incriminated upstanding townsfolk and worse, she may be living under the same roof as a pair of unlikely murderers.

Extract from Chapter One...

I’d driven the
road from Syracuse to Silver Firs plenty, but this was the first time I’d done
it like this, feeling like a fugitive sneaking into my old home town.
Technically, none of that was true. I wasn’t a fugitive, at least I didn’t
think so, and I didn’t even have to drive through town. Hollow House stood a
good half mile north of Silver Firs.

As soon as the
tip of the lake came into view, doubt set in.

Who was I
kidding? A half mile was peanuts when it came to the Silver Firs rumor mill.

I pressed the
button to let the soft top down so I could glance up, directly into the
cloud-streaked heavens.

“Three days,”
I bartered, spitting strands of wind-blown hair out of my mouth. “Give me three
days to chill out and I swear I’ll start going to church again. Every Sunday…”

I gnawed on my
lower lip.

Best to be
honest in cases like this.

“Every Sunday
for three weeks. That’s one morning for every incognito day you give me. Not
bad, huh?”

A measly cloud
puffed across the sinking sun, casting a shadow directly over me. I decided not
to take that as my answer and hit the gas. My little yellow bug left the
ominous shadow in the dust, nearly overshooting the turn-off in the process. I
stamped the brakes to cut a sharp right onto the packed dirt road that led up
to Hollow House.

The Hollows
were a founding family in the Finger Lakes region. The stately residence hadn’t
exactly stood the test of time, but was still an impressive sight. Built in the
Greek Revival style with wide front steps leading up to the recessed porch and
flanked by enormous Ionic pillars. The North and South wings folded back, facing
onto the lake and not visible from the driveway. Take away the latticed windows
and the place would’ve been a dead ringer for a Greek Temple.

Up close, the extent
of disrepair became evident. The white washed out of the peeling paint. Chipped
woodwork. The gravel driveway wrapped around a patch of dry stalks choking on
thriving weeds.

I was pretty
sure there was a Hollow ancestor rolling over in a grave somewhere. First George
Hollow had turned their beautiful legacy into a common lakeside inn and now he’d
let it fall to rot and ruin.

I navigated around
the weed patch and pulled up beneath a papery white beech near the foot of the
stone stairs. A quick check in the rearview mirror assured me there was nothing
I could do about my wind-massacred hair.

I took a deep
breath of pine-scented fresh air to lace my bones.

“You can’t
stop there,” called a croaky voice from behind.

I glanced over
my shoulder to find the familiar sight of old Mr Hollow brandishing his
polished cane at me as he limped out onto the porch. Some things never changed.

“Hello, Mr
Hollow,” I shouted cheerfully as I climbed out of the car. “It’s me! Maddox
Storm.”

“I’m not blind
nor deaf and I still need you to drive around the side,” he grunted, but at
least he brought the cane down to thump the spot beside him. “Can’t have you
taking up parking space. The front’s reserved for guests.”

I looked around.
The driveway did a wide loop with dozens of spots for cars to pull off beneath
their own shaded tree. More to the point, there wasn’t a single car out front
except for mine.

My gaze swept
back to the rail-thin man.

Mr Hollow was
as much a fixture in Silver Firs as the town hall, with his trademark cream
linen suit, shock of white hair, thick-rimmed glasses and, as Nana Rose would
say, that face as sour as the day he were
born.

Nana Rose
would also clip my ear if I showed anything less than the utmost respect for a
man nearly three times my age, but I was not about to let grumpy George Hollow
bully me.

We were
business partners now.

That respect could
flow both ways or not at all.

“I’ll move it
later,” I called back, stooping over the rear door to haul my lumpy suitcase
off the backseat.

Mr Hollow harrumphed.
Or maybe that was a growl.

I glanced up
into his scowling face and rolled my eyes. Seriously, considering I’d just
wired a hundred and fifty grand into his account, you’d think the man could
muster a tiny smile!

∞∞∞

My clothes
took up less than a fifth of the closet space. I snapped the battered suitcase
shut and shoved it in along the bottom. I had a full set of designer luggage
back at the apartment in New York City, of course, but I was an actress. Having
a flair for the dramatic was my ‘thing.’ It seemed fitting to return home with
only the battered suitcase (and however much I could stuff into it) that I’d
left with four years ago.

Finished
unpacking, I crossed to the window and flung open the heavy brocade drapes. My
breath caught at the spectacular beauty of the sunset reflected off the
tranquil surface of the lake.

As a stake
holder in the inn, I got free board and beverages and I’d chosen a corner suite
on the top floor of the south wing, much to Mr Hollow’s dismay. He’d wanted to
tuck me into a drab single under the staircase, to save the grand rooms for
paying guests.

And when they come, I’d informed him
sweetly, maybe we could both move
downstairs to the less desirable accommodations.

That had been
a leading statement, but if I’d held my breath waiting for Mr Hollow to dispute
it, I’d be blue-faced and dead by now. Mr Hollow had just grunted and left me
to settle in. I hadn’t seen or heard anyone besides us as we’d walked through
the house. Maybe they were out and about, enjoying our picture-perfect town. I
hadn’t expected a full house, the tourist season didn’t really pick up here until
the end of spring, but I hadn’t expected an empty house either.

My gaze
settled on the fairytale castle directly across on the opposite shore.

It wasn’t dusk
yet, but the place was lit up with the soft glow of a million candle-bulb
lights that spilled out onto the manicured lawn.

Lakeview Spa Retreat.

The exclusive
spa was a favorite getaway for celebrities and lured all the usual gawkers and
stalkers, all of which turned a lucrative trade for Silver Firs in addition to
the regular wine touring crowd. It had turned a lucrative trade for Hollow
House, too, until the budget hotel Fortune Paradise had gone up.

That was also
the reason Joseph McMurphy hated Silver Firs with a passion most men reserved
for the bedroom. Oh, he hated all small towns, said they made him feel
claustrophobic. But he had a special loathing for a town that thrived on
invading the privacy of the rich and famous.

I’d taken it
as a testament of his undying love when Joe had given in to me and agreed to
hold our wedding in my home town last year. Hah! We should just have gone down
to City Hall, squeezed an hour in somewhere between a dental checkup and a
matinee show.

So call it
revenge.

Actually,
let’s call it poetic justice.

But I thought
clearing out our joint bank account to buy a significant stake in Hollow House,
the evil den (his words, not mine) that housed and fed all those celebrity
gawkers, had a certain dramatic flair to it. Too bad Joe had been too occupied
with Chintilly Swan’s generous assets to remember his scorned wife had full
signing power on the bank account.

My purse
squealed like a piglet in distress, sending me into a near-state of cardiac
arrest.

I thumped my
chest to get my heart beating again and rushed over to dig out my cell phone before
the next squeal. I considered my options as I turned the volume down, but she
wouldn’t stop until she’d reached me and then I’d get the third-degree. As good
an actress as I was, not even I could lie my way through one of Mom’s
inquisitions.

And if you’re
wondering about my mom’s ringtone, just think of it as electrotherapy. A little
pre-emptive heart shock did an excellent job of putting anything my mom had to
say into perspective.

That squealing
piglet had done wonders for our relationship.

I hit the
answer button and pressed the phone to my ear. “Mom, how are you?”

“What on earth
are you doing at Hollow House and what time can we expect you for dinner?”

See? My heart
didn’t even stutter.

“Um…” I ambled
toward the serene view outside my bedroom window and glared up at the deceptively
innocent sky.

Half an hour,
seriously? Guess who will be sleeping in on Sunday morning.

“You’ll have
to apologize to Jimmy Balkin,” Mom twittered on. “I might have accused him of
smoking some of those mushrooms he delivered to the big house but Belinda Mayer
was out walking and she swore that was your yellow Beetle turning into the
drive.”

“Uh, yes,
but—”

“I’m so
relieved you’ve come home. I’ve been desperate to speak to you since last night
but your father absolutely put his foot down. The stubborn fool insisted I give
you space and now you’re here and clearly the last thing you need is space.”

“Actually,
that’s exactly…” Her words sunk in and my spine stiffened. They knew. How was
it even possible? I hadn’t breathed a word to anyone, not even Jenna.

“Anyway, I’ve
chicken hotpot on the go and it’s almost done. You won’t be long, will you?”

“I’ll see you
in ten minutes,” I grumbled, giving in gracelessly.

Five of those
minutes went to untangling the knots from my hair with a wide-toothed comb. I
wasn’t in the mood to bother about appearances, but my mom could spin a life tapestry
out of one bad hair day and I seriously wasn’t in the mood for that.

My phone went
off twice before I reached my car. The whispered whistle of an arrow cutting
through air was easy to ignore. The angelic melody of a Nightingale, however,
was Jenna and best friends were forever. Unlike husbands, apparently.

“Hey, Jenna,”
I answered.

“Hey yourself,
Maddie Mad,” Jenna said in her sparkling voice. “I assume you were just about
to call to let me know you were in town.”

“That depends on
whether you’ve been smoking mushrooms with Jimmy or out walking with Mrs
Mayer.”

I rolled my
eyes as I slid behind the wheel and turned the engine. “I don’t know what to be
more horrified by, that Miss Crawley is posting about me or that you’ve
Friended her.”

Miss Crawley
was an over-zealous snoop and a self-proclaimed spinster, although rumor had it
there’d been a secret wedding back in the day.

“She always
has the juiciest bits of news. I swear, that woman knows when you’re going to
burp before you do. And…” Jenna groaned, “I’ve just heard myself. Okay, we’re
forgetting this conversation ever happened and I’m un-Friending her first thing
in the morning.”

“You see?” I
pressed the button to raise the soft top and put my phone on speaker so I could
talk while I reversed out from under the tree. “This is exactly why you should
have run away with me to the city when you had the chance.”

“Your parents
bought your bus ticket and covered your rent for the first six months,” Jenna
scoffed. “I’m not sure that counts as running away.”

“I ran away.”

“Keep telling
yourself that,” Jenna said. “So, I’m meeting Jack at Seefies after I close up.
Do you want to meet me here or should I swing by your place on the way to
collect you?”

“Raincheck?” I
was dying to meet the new man in Jenna’s life, but I didn’t want to buzzkill
their second (or was it third?) date.
“I’ll be around for a while.”

“Did Joe come
up with you?”

“No,” I said,
a little too sharply.

Jenna never
missed a thing. “Everything okay?”

“Not really,”
I sighed.

“That’s it,”
Jenna declared. “I’ll ditch Jack and—”

“No, don’t,” I
said quickly. “I’d like to at least meet the poor guy before you blow him off
and seriously, Jenna, I’m just going to crash early. It’s been a long day.”

It had been a
long week.

“Oh, of
course,” Jenna said, clearly thinking I’d just driven all the way up from New
York.

I hadn’t. I’d
been staying at a motel outside Syracuse these last two days, but I didn’t
correct her.

We arranged to
catch up over breakfast the next morning. When Jenna suggested the Silver Boat,
a diner on the edge of town, I slyly countered with The Terrace at Hollow House
to ease the cat halfway out the bag.

“Ha ha,” she
snorted, with good reason.

Rumor had it
the famous (around here, anyway) terrace restaurant had been closed since the
French cordon bleu chef had departed in a snit last year. We couldn’t know for
sure, since the restaurant had never been open for day traffic. No one was
allowed past the reception desk at Hollow House unless you checked in for the
night and the going rate was exorbitant.

“Did you hear,”
Jenna went on, “George Hollow went to Little & Little in Syracuse, looking
for outside capital? He probably wanted to do it on the hush hush, but how did
he not know Miss Crawley’s niece works as a legal secretary for the brokerage
firm?”

“Yeah, my mom
mentioned something about it,” I said vaguely. “Anyway, I’m staying at Hollow
House. I can’t promise you French cuisine, but I’ll see what I can do about
breakfasting on the terrace. See you at about seven?”

“Wait… Back
up. Say what?”

“I’ll explain
everything tomorrow.”

“Don’t I get a
hint?”

It wasn’t
really a hint kind of thing, but that didn’t stop Jenna from making up her own
hints as I cruised down the valley road.

“Your house
has termites.”

“You’ve had
another fight with your mom.”

“You’re down
here for a dirty weekend with a delicious co-star.”

“No, no, and
hell no.” I slowed down for the Brewer intersection on the edge of town. “Stop
obsessing. Everything’s fine, I just needed my own space. Have fun with Jack
and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I ended the
call and turned inland from the lake to skirt the town square, a pretty green that
backed up onto the restaurants and quaint shops of the tourist zone. On the
opposite end of the lawn stood the white-washed town hall that housed the
mayor’s offices, the small library and even smaller police station.

The weather
was unseasonably warm for this early in spring and folks were taking advantage
of it before the sun blinked out completely for the day. An impromptu baseball
game was in play, a handful of parents chatting or texting as they fielded,
while their little tigers and tigresses exhausted their energy with an
impressive record of home runs. The Blue Rinse Ladies were taking their evening
turn around the green; I was surprised to see Beatrix Salmer without her
walker.

The bandstand in
the middle of the green drew my attention and a wave of nostalgia swept over me
at the memory of my first kiss on a wintery evening. Snuggling up to Billy
Dover with his coat wrapped around us both and a million diamonds twinkling
down on us from a crisp black sky. The kiss had been a horrid mess, but
everything else had been quite romantic.

I shook off
the nostalgic feeling at my little detour down memory lane. Stupid. I’d been
back for plenty of visits since I’d left. But I guess this was the first time
I’d returned home with the intention of staying a while. Maybe the first time
I’d allowed myself to admit how much I’d missed the place.

I’d never
wanted to leave Silver Firs.

Not really.

I’d even taken
an on-line drama course after graduation. But the community theatre that leased
the Presbyterian Church hall on Thursday evenings wasn’t going to launch my
name in bright lights and that was the only showbiz in town. So I’d jumped onto
a bus and chased my dreams. To Broadway, not Hollywood. They say cameras put on
ten pounds and who needed that?

Anyway, I’d
bussed tables at Caffe Laffe, attended proper acting classes and auditioned
until my feet stained the streets of New York City.

Then one day
Joseph McMurphy walked into my coffee shop, sandy hair flopping all over his
cute puppy-dog face. I was struck, there and then. My heart stopped dead and
never beat quite right again after that.

Back then, Joe
was still a professor of English Lit although if you asked, he’d tell you he
was a struggling writer. It took three weeks of dating and half a bottle of
cheap whiskey before he’d finally admitted he had a legitimate job that paid
the rent.

Six months
later, we were married and I’d moved into his two-bedroom rent stabilized
apartment. The year that followed had been utter bliss. We could do no wrong.
Joe’s crime thriller got noticed and went to auction on a three-book deal. I
landed a part on Broadway, a dramatic play called The Rambler about an abused
husband, although the star of the show was his shrewish wife. I was only the
understudy to Chintilly Swan, but she played the lead role and it was my first
paying gig.

And then…

And then I
walked in on Joe and Chintilly in her dressing room after that backstage party
last Friday night and Ka-Boom!

So there it
was, more than you ever wanted to know about me.

And here I
was, my life packed up into a lumpy suitcase, my heart a barren wasteland and
dry as a bone.

That wasn’t me
being my usual dramatic self.

I actually
hadn’t shed a single tear, not once since Friday night.

There was obviously
something seriously wrong with me, but I wasn’t looking to fix it anytime soon.
If I could make it through the rest of my life without crying a single tear
over Joseph McMurphy, that would be better than chili corndogs dipped in
vanilla ice cream.

I spotted my
dad as I pulled up beside the curb outside our house. He was kneeled over a bed
of churned ground, probably whispering sweet nothings to the bulbs he’d planted
last autumn. He didn’t have a green thumb, but you had to give him a big thumb’s
up for perseverance.

He glanced
over, saw me stepping onto the sidewalk, and slowly pushed up from his knees.
The worry creasing wrinkles around his eyes and his crumpled smile told me he
knew exactly how bad my life sucked.

Without a
word, I walked into his wide open arms and pressed my cheek into the comforting
hollow of his shoulder.

He patted my
back, his voice gruff, “I’m going to kill that Joe of yours.”

“Oh, daddy,” I
said with a ragged laugh. “And here I thought not even you could make it better
this time. But…”

I stood back
to give him a warning look, because one could never be too sure when it came to
Dad getting all protective over his baby girl. “You do know you can’t actually
kill Joe? And you can’t kill Chintilly Swan either,” I thought it wise to add.

He tipped his
head, scratching his beard. “What’s your co-star got to do with this?”

“I’m the
understudy, Chintilly’s the star,” I explained for about the hundredth time. “I
only get to go onstage if she’s run over by a bus.”

“Sounds like a
co-star to me,” he insisted stubbornly.

I don’t know
why I bothered. Besides, that wasn’t the part about Chintilly that needed
explaining right now.

I folded my
arms and grimaced. “She’s the one Joe’s having an affair with.”

“Sweet Mary.” The
tan slid off my dad’s leathery face. “Joe’s having…” his voice dropped and I
swear he aged a couple of years before my eyes “…an affair?”

Oh, okay…
Crap! This was precisely the problem with small towns. You automatically
assumed everyone knew everything and the next moment, everyone did know everything.

“He phoned
here last night, looking for you,” Dad said. “Your mother talked him in circles
until he finally confessed you’d left him. He didn’t say why and it didn’t matter.
Whatever he’d done was bad enough to chase you off.”

“Well, that it
certainly was.”

“Come here.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and we walked up the path. “Maybe it would
be better if we kept this to ourselves, huh? Your mother doesn’t need all the
gory details.”

I nodded and
my spirit lifted for the fraction of a second it took me to remember that this
was dad. He meant well, but the last time he’d kept a secret for more than two
minutes was, like…never.

The rest of
the evening proceeded pretty much as I’d feared it would.

Mom was
impeccably attired, as always, in a flared daisy-print skirt and chintz blouse,
modest two-inch heel pumps and an elegantly coiffed bun.

She took one
look at Dad’s knee-soiled trousers and ordered him upstairs to change for dinner.
She looked set to do the same to me, but finally only huffed a small sigh of
disappointment and greeted me with a peck on the cheek.

I glanced down
at my over-sized tee, faded jeans and beaded flip-flops as I followed her into
the kitchen and kind of saw her point. But my tee hid the multitude of sins I’d
indulged in this past week and the jeans were my favorite pair.

“You know, honey,”
Mom said as she took the hotpot out the oven. “Marriage is all about
compromise. Give and take.”

“Hmm…” I rummaged
through the drawers for placemats and cutlery.

“Bless your
father, but it’s a woman’s lot in life to give a little more and let men do the
taking. It’s in our nature.”

I thought of
how much Chintilly had been giving out and couldn’t disagree, so I bit my
tongue and set three places at the pine kitchen table before plonking my butt
into my usual seat.

The landline
trilled in the hallway.

My eyes
widened on Mom. “If that’s Joe, I’m not here and you haven’t seen me.”

“That’s not
the way to handle it.” She stripped her oven gloves and started for the door.
“You can’t resolve anything until you talk it out.”

“Mom!”

The trilling
cut off to the sound of Dad’s voice as he answered.

Mom turned
back to me. “The problem with you kids nowadays is you’re too stubborn and
proud to just have it out. A good old fashioned fight is like a colon cleanse,
unpleasant but it does wonders for unclogging the marriage pipeworks.”

“Now there’s a
picture I’ll never be able to un-see.”

Mom gave me a
nonplussed look that made me wonder what pipeworks she thought she’d been
talking about. Curiosity got the better of me and I was about to ask when Dad
popped into the kitchen, freshly spruced in a pair of clean brown corduroys and
a blue and white checkered shirt.

“That’s Miss
Crawley on the phone, dear,” he told Mom. “She wants to know if you’ll be
skipping Bridge Club tonight on account of Maddie’s unexpected visit.”

“The nosy
bat.” Mom’s hands went to her hips. “You can tell Miss Crawley I won’t be
coming, but I’ve already made the lemon meringue pie so she may as well stop by
to collect it on her way. Not before seven, mind you, it won’t be set till then.
And while you’re at it, you tell Miss Crawley she needn’t get any ideas about—”
she noticed Dad had zoned out and threw her hands up. “Never mind, I’ll go tell
her myself.”

She arched a
brow at me, as if to say See, I give and
give and never expect any help in return and marched out into the hallway.

Dad came over
to the table with a wink and a half-fledged smile. “If we hurry, we can make it
through to dessert before your mother gets back. Once those two get started on
each other, there’s no stopping them.”

I chuckled at
my co-conspirator and dished us each a generous portion of casserole. The tangy
aroma of salsa hit my nostrils. My mouth watered and I grinned at Dad as we
tucked in. Who said you couldn’t eat your troubles away?

I was
considering the pros and cons of a second-helping versus dessert when Mom
returned.

“That was
quick, dear,” Dad mumbled around his final mouthful.

“I don’t have
time to blabber with Miss Crawley when our poor Maddox is falling to pieces,”
Mom said primly.

“That doesn’t
sound silly at all,” I said. “Life doesn’t end at the age of seventy.”

“But it is an
indecent age to start new fashion trends.” Mom served herself a bird-like
portion of chicken sans any layers of rice. “It won’t be long before they’re
all prancing around like spritely teenagers and then where will we be?” She
gave a little shudder and raised a dainty forkful of chicken to her lips.

I didn’t point
out that I’d been a teenager not all that long ago and I’d never have been
caught dead in a spritely prance. “Last I heard, hip replacements weren’t
contagious.”

“Don’t be
precocious,” Mom chided. “First Beatrix, then Elna and Martha. They should be
ashamed of themselves.”

Wintery
fingers caressed my spine. Probably a stray ghost from Mason Creek. We’d spent
many an idle summer afternoon biking over to the crumbling Victorian just other
side the valley, but to my knowledge no one had ever won the dare and crossed
that threshold. What Mason Creek had to do with the current hip replacement
fever, however, was beyond me.

“Jeremy
Windsor?” I scratched my brain, came up empty. “Is he a newcomer?”

“An oldcomer,”
Mom informed me. She put her fork down and fetched a copy of the Silver Firs
Gazette, dated three months ago, I noticed, as she slapped it down in front of
me.

A grainy black
and white photo of a clean-cut handsome blond guy posing in the vintage Met’s
button-down jersey splashed the front page.

I scanned the
headline and the first couple of paragraphs.

HOMEGROWN METS SUPERSTAR RETURNS TO THE
ROOST

Our very own Jeremy Windsor will
once again grace our humble streets. He sold his successful sports agency
earlier this year and is all set to invest his future in Silver Firs.
Renovations are due to begin on Mason Creek in the summer and he hopes to move
in before Christmas.

When asked the pertinent question, Mr
Windsor had this to say. “It’s been nearly fifty years and I’ve had a good run.
It’s time for me to settle down and I wouldn’t want to do that anywhere else
but in Silver Firs.”

Inside sources confirm Mr Windsor
has never been married. When asked if he’d left a sweetheart back home whom he
hoped to settle down with, Mr Windsor had no comment.

I raised my
head to look at mom. “Did you know him?”

“Apparently he
left Silver Firs at the age of twenty-three, long before my time.” She stacked
our empty plates and carried them to the sink. “So far I know, he hasn’t been
back home since.”

I did the math,
came up with nearly seventy-three years of age plus half a dozen spinster Blue
Rinse Ladies. “For goodness sake, are you saying they’ve all spent the last
fifty years pining for this guy?”

Mom turned from
the sink. “Speaking of marriage—”

“We weren’t.”

“It’s rude to
interrupt, honey.”

“Marge,” Dad
warned, “let the girl be. It’s not our place to interfere.”

“Oh, hush
yourself.” Mom crossed her arms and frowned at him. “There’s a fine line
between interfering and helping—”

“And you
wouldn’t know what it looked like if it bit you on the—”

“Henry Jacob!”
Mom gasped.

Dad dropped
his shoulders, instantly contrite. “Sorry, dear.”

“All I’m asking is that you and Joe talk,” Mom
said to me. “Before this little misunderstanding grows into a crater.”

“I know for a
fact you made a second lemon meringue pie,” Dad deflected. “Don’t be shy with
it, Marge, we could all do with some cheering up.”

“Maddox is too
distraught to eat.”

My mom didn’t
know me, not at all. “I’ve saved some space for pie,” I piped up eagerly.

Her eyes found
mine. “Are you sure, honey? That poor Heather Ottenburgh withered away to almost
nothing when her marriage fell apart last year,” she said wistfully, her gaze
running down my over-sized tee.

I’d never be
skinny and I’d learned to be okay with that. I tended to fluctuate between a
healthy size ten and a slightly healthier size twelve, depending on my
self-will power in any given week. I’d squeezed into my size tens this morning
and unfortunately that was as much as I’d ever whither.

“There’s
nothing wrong with Maddie’s figure,” Dad said thickly.

“Of course
there isn’t,” Mom told him, then to me, “But even perfection can be improved on,
that’s all I’m saying.”

Suddenly my
jeans felt a size too small. I squirmed uncomfortably in my own skin, something
I hadn’t done in years. Thanks, Joseph
McMurphy, for that knock to my self-confidence. You’re the gift that just keeps
on giving.

“Enough,” Dad
barked, shooting up from the table to glare down on Mom. “This is the last
thing Maddie needs when her husband has just left her for a younger woman!”

“Oh, dear.”
Mom went white as a sheet and sank back against the counter. “Oh, dear, oh,
dear…”

Dad dropped
heavily into his seat and muttered a miserable, “Sorry, pumpkin,” to me.

“It’s okay,
you held out longer than I expected,” I reassured him with a sigh. “For the
record, though, Chintilly may be prettier and skinnier than me, but she is not younger.”

I wasn’t privy
to her precise age, but I’d guess she was closer to thirty-four than my own
twenty-four.

With one last,
“Oh, dear,” Mom pulled herself together. She opened the fridge and brought out
a pie dish topped with creamy peaks of meringue. Maybe she knew me better than
I’d thought.

And if you’re
thinking I’ve surely lost my appetite by now, then you’re not and never have
been a comfort eater.

Mom served up
the pie, waited until I’d savored my first bite, then she leant in across the
table and clasped her hand over mine. “Are you absolutely sure Joe’s left you?”

I flicked my
eyes toward the ceiling. “I’m not making this up, Mom.”

“I know, but
could it just be a…a fling?” she said hopefully.

“Would that
make a difference?” I spluttered. “Are you suggesting I go back to him and
pretend nothing happened? I can’t. Even if Joe wants me back, I could never
stay with him after this.”

“I suppose
not.” Mom sat back and folded her hands on the table in front of her. “But
you’re not considering divorce, are you?”

“Don’t use
that tongue with your mother,” Dad admonished, taking an uncustomary firm
stand. “And that’s enough, Marge. This is Maddie’s decision and we’ll support
her no matter what she decides.”

He was right.

On both
counts.

This was hard
on Mom. ‘People’ did not divorce, at least not on her side of the family. “I’m
sorry for snapping. You’re not the one I’m mad at.”

I loved my
parents to bits, but they were best taken in small doses and preferably never at
the same time as a crisis.

On that note,
I forced out a smile and was about to say my goodbyes when I remembered we
hadn’t even touched on the topic of Hollow House yet.

As much as I
wanted to leave this conversation for another day, they were sure to notice
when I left via the front door instead of up the stairs to my bedroom. If I
couldn’t sneak in half a mile outside Silver Firs, there was no way in hell I’d
be able to sneak out right beneath their noses.

I pushed my
plate across to Mom and sighed. “I’m going to need another slice of pie.”

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